The model represents a sunset over the Tatooine desert. Tatooine is a fictional planet that appears in the Star Wars saga. The planet is a vast desolate desert and orbits a close binary system consisting of a pair of G-type stars. At the time Tatooine was created by George Lucas, no extrasolar planets had yet been discovered. Today, we know the existence, in our galaxy, of thousands of stars with planets in orbit around them. Some of these are circumbinary planets, i.e. planets that orbit two stars instead of one … like Tatooine. An example is HD 202206, in which a Jupiter-size planet orbits a system consisting of a Sun-like star and a brown dwarf. Currently none of the known circumbinary planets are terrestrial planets located in the habitable zone. However, we cannot exclude the existence of circumbinary planets similar to Tatooine.
Credits: Image of the sky created by Matthias Kappenburg.